Enhancement of saturated pool boiling heat transfer using cationic surfactant solution over a coated aluminium surface

Abstract The present study reports an experimental investigation on the enhancement of saturated pool boiling of different base fluids with the addition of a cationic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), on a coated aluminium heater substrate. The base fluids used here are acetone, Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA), ethanol and distilled water. The different concentrations of cationic surfactant CTAB such as 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 ppm are added with different base fluids to prepare the aqueous solution. The pool boiling of such solutions are studied by heating with a TiO2 coated heater surface. The coating is done using High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF) method. Different heat flux values are taken to change the degree of super heat and its effect on pool boiling characteristics are investigated. A study on heat transfer coefficient effected by the concentration of CTAB is presented here. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) is found to be 400 ppm for both acetone solution and ethanol solution while it is 600 ppm of CTAB for IPA based solution and 200 ppm for distilled water. Finally, the enhancement factor is calculated which is about 2 times for IPA solution mixed with 600 ppm of CTAB as compared to its pure solution. This is the highest value among the other three solution considered.